Thread: Re: Avatars
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Old Oct 17, 2003, 04:51 PM
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SeptemberMorn SeptemberMorn is offline
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Member Since: Jul 2003
Location: CA
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{{{{{{{{{{Darrel}}}}}}}}}}}} Here's what Webster's has to say today:

Sympathy: 1 a : an affinity, association, or relationship between persons or things wherein whatever affects one similarly affects the other b : mutual or parallel susceptibility or a condition brought about by it c : unity or harmony in action or effect
2 a : inclination to think or feel alike : emotional or intellectual accord b : feeling of loyalty : tendency to favor or support <republican sympathies>
3 a : the act or capacity of entering into or sharing the feelings or interests of another b : the feeling or mental state brought about by such sensitivity <have sympathy for the poor>
4 : the correlation existing between bodies capable of communicating their vibrational energy to one another through some medium

Empathy: 1 : the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object (or person) so that the object appears to be infused with it
2 : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this

Simply put by one of my psychologists: Empathy: "You can feel for the person without jumping into the hole with them."

Having been "in the hole" so much, I'd rather not jump in again for someone else. I can stand on the edge of the hole and offer a hand up. My problem is that sometimes I don't even want to do that! I'm not sure if it's "knowing my limits," or is it a lack of compassion/empathy.



<font color=blue>Don't die with your music still in you.</font color=blue>
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Psalm 119:105 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.